The Loneliness of a Long Distance Hunter
by Madi Holmes
Summary: Sequel to The Education of Dean Winchester, second in a trilogy Dean is twenty-one and out on his own. Working a case in rural Missouri, he suddenly realizes the power and enjoyment he finds in reading, albeit slightly against his will. Yes, I just wrote a dubcon reading story. Answers a few questions about Dean, how he can reference the literary books and authors in the show, and


His family had cracked.

It wasn't that he had done something wrong, it was that he hadn't done enough. Not enough watching and protecting his little brother, cleaning, researching, breaking up fights, soothing egos, keeping tempers down, stomachs full.

He knew, somewhere hidden inside him, that none of this was on him. That he had zero fault in the massive riot between his father and his brother. But that was an easy emotion to quash, to weigh down and drown under guilt, anger, and loneliness. His gut ached, he was scared, alone, and withdrawing into himself a bit further each day. Growing quiet, felt less and less as he huddled in, silencing himself.

Music helped. He'd always been a metal head. Redlining the Impala with cassettes cranked up to 11 night-in, night-out helped to block out the lack of noise, but he ultimately realized that all it did was stop himself from talking. That he hadn't said anything in days, weeks maybe. It was a default, he knew, had been, even screaming at the top of his lungs as a mouthy kid, there was something inhibiting the reality of himself. The loudness had muffled the muteness.

And suddenly here he was staring at a ceiling full of sodden popcorn and cracks. Twenty-one years old, alone, and wondering if hunting had been the answer to all of life and death's problems or was simply borne of mere habit.

He'd quickly burned through the various temptations out there: sex, porn, girls, cigarettes, alcohol, driving too fast, some of the lesser addictive drugs, fighting. Some he kept up- sex was always the number one spot, but mostly he dropped the others out of boredom, poverty, or sheer lack of follow through. There was nobody to watch him, cluck at poor decisions, see that he took care of himself, judge him, or praise him. He was alone, his father seemed disinterested at the best of times, still a hardass while working, and they were on a very long, very intense dry spell.

He was in. He couldn't remember. Some no-name town in Missouri. Skidmark, Skidrow. Someplace where they all pronounced it "Missur-ah, where there was more trash blowing through the street than humans living in city limits. There were, in fact, zero humans. He'd never seen anything like it. Nobody was out during the day, not even when school should have been just starting or ending. No people out during late afternoon, walking in that small town way, out eating at lunch at the local downtown restaurant. It was the deadest town he'd ever been in even if their welcome sign had posted a population of about two hundred.

There was a hunt to be had. It leeching off the buildings, something slowly killing them all. But he couldn't find it, couldn't figure out where to start. It wasn't just some localized event, but something infecting the whole town.

Getting up, he trekked over to the library on Main Street. Stopped. It was gutted, near dead. The white walls were dingy, the front window displaying oversized books swollen open with cancer. He finally entered, found the insides half lit and rotten.

"Can I help you?" came a voice from the back, warm, displacing the gloom. An older woman stood from behind a short shelf, a happy librarian type, complete with a pair of chained glasses and hair bun.

Dean took one look at her, and knew the twist at the end. Had read enough R.L. Stine, John Bellairs, and Stephen King as a kid to recognize a dead town that didn't know it was dead.

"Yeah, I was wondering if you had any… newspapers for the area… I wanted to check my cousin's high school wrestling scores." Dean laid out smoothly. "He's from Saint Joe, but moved around here last year."

"Of course," she replied. "I haven't gotten anything since yesterday, but you are more than happy to peruse." She hummed, plucking a newspaper bisected on a wooden rod.

Dean checked the dates, the headlines, then flipped to the regional section. "Great, I think he won three matches and lost one." Pointedly ignoring the twenty year old date.

"That's lovely, dear," she replied, shelving a book over and over again. "Now, do you need help with anything else?'

"Well… maybe," Dean suddenly said. "I'm looking for a few books. Cookbooks," not sure what he was saying, where he was going, "Just something basic."

"Lovely, we have a full selection in the non-fiction section," she stated, leading him over to the back shelves, her hand gently touching his elbow. "This one is my favorite," she let go, plucked out a random edition, and handed it over.

"'To serve… Man?'" he cocked an eyebrow.

"Oh... oh! You are quite the scamp," she laughed as he took it from her, flipped through a couple pages. "Would you like anything else?"

Dean shrugged, looked around again. Snagged a couple other books, filled out a library card application. Waited as the librarian thunked due date stamps onto the checkout card. "Oh, Tommy," she said over the smell of stamp pad. "Perhaps you'd like some of these as well." Disappeared in the back before Dean could decline, emerged quickly as he was about to abandon everything. "Here," she cooed, giving him five more. "Normally, we only allow four books out at a time for new patrons, but I know you'd love these as well."

He thanked her again, pile in hand, and left her there in the returning gloom. He absent-mindedly dumped the books in the trunk, slid into the front seat, and headed back to the hotel room. Packed his belongings, hit the nearest county road, and got the hell out of town before sun set.

Pulling into Maryville, Dean set up base in a new hotel- this time the popcorn ceiling was embedded with glitter. He drug out the duffel from the trunk, stopped for a second, and snagged a couple books. Went inside, and belly flopped onto the bed.

Started leaving messages on Bobby's and Caleb's answering machines. Someone had to be in touch with his dad, and torching an entire town was way beyond his experience.

As he Unloaded his duffel, he suddenly realized that he'd kept the library books. Thought about burning them, but decided to at least just flip through one. For posterity's sake. The first was some weird romance. Dean shrugged, rejected it outright, but the second was infinitely more interesting.

A 1970 copy of the Joy of Cooking. He'd been starving, and something suddenly hit deep. The descriptions, the weird recipes about lamb and sauces and garnishes, the duck and rabbit stews. The cooking level was way beyond what he could do, but there was also something intriguing. Making him hungrier. He closed his eyes, feasting on memories of feeding his brother, letting Sam dictate their meals, even when to eat. And then the snot hardly ever bothered to do the dishes.

Dean left the motel room suddenly, abandoning the book as it slumped back behind the bed, tangled in the quilt. Headed over to the local grocery store, tooled around up and down the aisles, finding things that piqued his interest. Started to find items he hadn't eaten in years- nutty bars, canned ravioli, ramen noodles, Vienna sausages. Just food that touched random memories of his childhood.

Went back to the room, laid his dinner out on the table back at the hotel room, and just devoured everything. Called the main desk for any phone messages as he flipped open out a Missouri map and found the tiniest black dot that was Skidrow. Spread clippings and articles about the town over the table, made a few notes.

His reconnaissance mission had been okay, not great. There was just something too still about the town. He could have stayed the night, should have, but something spooked him, even just driving along streets had stirred something crocodilian in the dark recesses of his brain. The sun had been that much oppressive, the wind sharper. He couldn't breathe while there, something constrictive and slithering around his chest. He was never going back without a Soviet tank or at least his father as backup.

Full, grossly full, he didn't remember that feeling of eating badly as part of his childhood- any food was food, but the meal didn't set well as he digested, his stomach distending as he laid down again.

Stuck, he rooted around for the cookbook from behind the bed, clawed it back up with his fingers, started to read it for something to do. Soufflés, crepes, pancake batter, banana bread. Foods, even entire food groups that existed outside of his universe. The processed food just continued to sit in his gut. He'd wanted something more with the book, wanted to get his hands on some flour and water and some apples, and just randomly bake something that suspiciously sounded like a pie. Or a crumble. Or a brown betty. Or a cake. Or a strudel. Or tart.

Tossing the book, he picked up another. Started to actually read- something he hadn't really done since he was nine, hadn't thought about since he was ten. For a dead, old chick, Dean pondered, she'd known her shit. He read deeper into the evening, settling on the bed, waiting for Bobby, God, his dad, Sammy, anyone to call and help him arson a town.

Got lost in pages as Vonnegut blended into Thompson into Bukowski into Kesey back into Vonnegut into Heller.

He hadn't realized that he'd checked out so books, looked around at the pile, saw that his two piles of read/unread were still evenly split. Went back to the Joy of Cooking, started with hors d'oeuvres, and kept going.

Fell asleep.

A loud knocking startled him, flipped him onto his feet, panicking.

"Yeah. Yeah," he yawned, looked at the piles again as he opened the door, the 5 mil tucked in his waistband, hidden beneath a flannel shirt.

"Boy, you baking in there? You better not be toking. We got rules here," an older woman leaned up at him, her finger all in his face.

"No-no, Ma'am," he said quietly, shrugging. Too tired to explain.

She peered back behind him, saw the books cluttered everywhere.

"Oh, you're one of those types."

"Ma'am?"

"Holed up in some motel room, getting away from everyone."

"Yeah…?" Dean couldn't help the lilt.

"English majors, studying for finals. I've a cousin near Mizzou who runs the Tigers Inn, and she gets them holed up like squirrels in winter nests. Just full of books and paper."

"Yeah," Dean replied groggily, yawning. "I have a final. On. Bukowsky and Vonnegut," he let out.

"Those dirty, old hippies?" she let out, her steely eyes of grey-green still pinning him in place. "Eh, not my type. You should try the beatniks- Kerouac and Ginsburg. Not Burroughs though. He was a pervert and a scoundrel. I've another cousin who runs the Jayhawker Inn in Lawrence. She tells me that there were scads of English majors who tried to hunt him down at that farm of his, and just do some weird hippy commune thing. Don't you be one of those types. You let him be dead. He's not worth the ink he's printed on. That creepy bastard."

Dean nodded sagely, not sure what she was on about.

"You're also behind."

"Oh…oh!" He said, pulling out his wallet, slipped out a credit card. "Sorry about that," he handed it over to her, a smile gracing his payment.

She took it from him, magically plopped a knuckle buster on the table, impressed the card, handed him a carbon copy, and then visibly relaxed. "Your daddy's been calling you. Also some men named Bobby and Tim? Another named Jefferson."

"Bobby's my uncle and Pastor Jim's a friend of dad's. Jefferson's a second cousin on my dad's mom's side. I'd been trying to get a hold of dad. Guess word got out."

She withdrew a bit, the explanation and family titles sufficient. "Good, can't be too careful with youngin's like you. You finish school. Get a nice girl or a nice boy, keep your nose clean. I don't judge, but there are too many creepy bastards out in this here world."

Dean allowed himself the comfort, her concern and care notching up after the bill was paid. He didn't care, basked in it anyway.

"Well, I'll just let you back to your studies then." She announced, slipping back outside. "You need anything, you call the front desk."

Dean smiled long enough for the door to close and her boots muffle away. He flattened back onto the bed, snagged the curly phone cord, and looked at the handset. Needed to call his dad. Hung up and picked up On the Road.

Got… multiple pages in. He knew this life. Grew up in this life of endless migration. Started to feel something negative against it. Realized that he hated the leads. That they could be so selfish, naïve, callous, and cruel. The two taking advantage of their friends and family, and uncaring of people who obviously cared about them. It was interesting, but Dean knew this book far better than the writer ever could, and started to despise everything about it. Even with the weird name thing.

Threw the book off against a wall, stood up, ate something unhealthy.

Stretching his back and feet, he thought about calling his dad again. Decided on another book. Got halfway through and fell asleep.

"Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"dean."

"yeah." Dean mumbled groggy and hungover.

"Wake up."

"yeah, okay. i'll get sammy to school." Dean rolled over, fumbled with a copy of Slaughterhouse 5. Flipped to page 36. "Funny… I can't remember what page I was on."

"Dean, wake up!" John knocked the book out of his son's hands.

"Hey! I was reading that."

"Yeah, that was the disturbing part, Dean. You haven't read a book. Ever."

"That's not-" Dean wanted to argue the point, finally let it go. Scrounged around for something. Another book.

John pushed all of the books off the bed, sat down. "When's the last time you ate?

"Or bathed?"

"Couple hours ago… This morning."

"Dean, you've been in here two days going on three. Sharon the owner finally called the operator to reverse the numbers to find me and Bobby."

"No, that's not."

"What've you gotten tangled up in?"

"Nothing. Just found a library and got some books."

"See, that's weird."

Dean started to pout silently, even with his dad there. Then realized he could actually smell himself, knew that was never a good sign.

"I was in this town down over about five miles. Named Skidrow or something like that. One of those 'dead towns where nobody knows it's dead' types. So I did some research and left."

"And that's it?"

"Yeah, the newspapers in the library were all from like 1971."

"I see. Anything else?"

"No, got out even before sunset. Called you and Bobby and Pastor Jim. Grabbed some food. That's it."

John pursed his lips, looked around room endlessly stacked with books. "And the reader's digests?"

"What? Those? I had to fill out a library card. Got a couple, you know, for appearances." Dean thought about reading some more and just tuning out his dad, then realized he was hungry, and reached for a Doritos bag. Started munching.

"There's like five hundred books in here, Dean. You think that might be connected?"

"…No, Sir." Dean looked around, saw the pile of books had grown into piles. Stacked horizontally all over the room.

"Right," John replied, frustrated. "Go get a shower. Then we'll eat." John sniffed the trashbag full of rotten food and containers. "Then we're probably going to have to torch that library."

"But she was really nice, Dad."

"Dean, Go. Now."

Dean stood up, slipped off his shirt, and stumbled into the bathroom.

It wasn't that Dean had wanted to help. Arson in Missouri was incredibly easy. A few gas cans full of gas, and a one stop trip to a fireworks store.

The trick was to keep the two combustibles separated until needed. Dean opted to transport the gas as his dad bought the m-80s and mortar kits with a fake Nebraska ID.

Outside the town limits, Dean parked up in an abandoned farm stead. John had already cracked the packaging, dumped out the powder into a bowl, and filled them into small bomb devices, ready to be placed around the library to do maximum structural damage. They hadn't said a word as Dean helped carefully transport them back into the back of the truck, then slowly drove into town on the main highway, dropping from sixty-five to the twenty-five listed speed limit.

John pulled over alongside a house- some pillbox number built after the war- as Dean went on ahead toward Main Street. He parked in front of a diner, closed his eyes; thought of Buk chugging a sixer, tossing the empties over the side of a cliff, when his dad reappeared in the rumbling truck.

"Anything?" Dean asked, still trapped in the poem as his dad got out.

"They're dead. I checked five houses. All dead. Just twenty year old corpses all with books in their hands."

"Yikes," Dean replied, slightly embarrassed.

"No shit," his dad replied, that gleam of disappointment and bemusement in his eyes. "You've really stepped in it."

Dean smiled, not thinking, "Well, it's a good thing that-" full stopped before he could say it.

"Good thing what?"

"That. That you showed up when you did. Me dying from reading? That's embarrassing."

John let the sentiment go, didn't push the real answer. "Yeah. You ready?"

"Always," Dean grinned, held up his unlit zippo.

John frowned.

Dean quickly put the lighter back in his pocket as he hitched up, got the gas cans from the back, and waited as his dad went in by himself.

Dean scratched his head for a time, his jawline, as he waited against the Impala for his dad to return. That feeling of death and oppressiveness was less than he remembered. He wondered absent-mindedly if his father's presence was the reason, that John was an immortal who could kick ass and do no harm.

"Well?" Dean asked as his father emerged from the library, the firework cocktails missing from his hands.

"You pour the gas around the building yet?"

"No. I wanted you to tell me what you thought first."

"I think there's a soul sucking succubus in there that's eaten an entire town to death, Dean. Do your damn job."

"Yes, Sir." Dean replied, pulling up the lid of one can, went to the back, poured gas around the foundation. Circled the whole structure as his dad followed with a twenty-five pound bag of water softener salt.

"Well, fire in the hole," Dean handed his dad the lighter. John lit a pack of m-80s, tossed them through the main door, dropped the lighter into the lake of gas.

Both hurried over to the cars, drove down down the road as the library started to smoke, then pulse green and red in small bursts of explosions. One massive flame engulfed everything, and Dean could see the swollen books dance, collapse as they caught fire then disintegrated into ash and char.

"Well, that does that." John stated. "Go wash your hands and change your clothes. You did a piss pour job pouring that gasoline. It's all over your jeans and boots."

Dean just shrugged, then wondered. "What about those books back at the motel?"

"Burn them too when we get back."

And that was that, Dean realized, somewhere between his motel room and Maryville's other restaurant.

His dad's job was done, he'd disappear back into the back roads heading to Indiana or Ohio or Texas. Leaving Dean alone again.

"Where you off to next?" he asked, ordering the pork steak, a massive potato, beans, corn, biscuits, a side salad, and half a pie.

"Don't know," John replied, ordering a big bowl of chili and a cinnamon roll. "There's a rumor around Wamego I want to check out. That damned windmill is causing havoc again."

Dean laughed, knowing his dad's one comical obsession with the building. His skin still smelt of fire and ash, but the shower and fresh clothes lessened it, and there'd been local prairie fires around to cover up the sooty stink left over from Skidrow.

They ate in silence. Dean wanting to have conversation after conversation with John, dreamt of their jokes and quips, but then it just never happened when they were together. It was companionable, but Dean wanted more, didn't know how to make it happen.

He just enjoyed the time together with his dad, eating dinner.

As they left, he wandered over to the Maryville Library, a two-tone brown and yellow corrugated tin building, waved off his dad off, and entered. Found a couple books in the stacks, started listening to the conversations at the front desk.

"So that abandoned town is just all up in flames?" The woman behind the desk yelped out.

"Guess so," an older guy replied, clearly shooting the shit. "The rumor is arson, or Satanic ritual, but it could also just be a prairie fire gone bad. Those Henderson's down by the quay never could keep their burns fully in check."

The woman pursed her lips as Dean listened in, amazed that the information had spread so quickly. "Yeah, I'd like to check these out," he stated.

"I need two forms of ID and a piece of paper with your address."

"Umm," Dean replied, suddenly not sure how Sammy had managed to get as many cards as he did. "I don't. Nevermind." He said, backed off away from the people, left the books on the checkout counter, and left, went back to his room.

Found the seven books he'd originally checked out. The others had magically vanished. His dad was peering over a newspaper with them by his side as Dean sidled into a chair. "Yeah, I think we're okay. They think it's arson, Satan, or prairie fire gone wrong."

"Good," John grumbled. "We'll pack up tonight, burn these in a garbage can, and take off. I'm going to Wamego. You coming?"

"I can… I just need to make one stop first. Won't be long."

Dean repacked his gear, hauled it out to the Impala, walked back to the library, and flirted with the librarian until she let him borrow the books he'd wanted without that address sheet. Managed to snag a copy of Factotum and another Joy of Cooking. It wasn't the 1965 edition, but a 1975, but Dean thought he could make do.


End file.
